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2004 President · M1

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-18 (15 days before the election) · 330 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 46%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.08% · Republican 43.14%

D+11.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 46 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.075 − 43.139 = 11.936
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (11.936) = -8.935
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.935| = 8.935

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 74499, race ID 8700 (538 database).